News & Features

Setting the IT Stage for 2016

AmCham Indonesia’s IT and Teleconnectivity Committee gathered to plan for the year ahead

By Gilang ArdanaThursday, February 25, 2016

AmCham Indonesia’s IT and Teleconnectivity Committee kicked off 2016 with its first meeting in early February to discuss the key areas of concern for its advocacy during the year, and address the two most-discussed issues for the sector: local content regulations and onshore data centers.

A. Lin Neumann, AmCham’s Managing Director, opened the meeting, welcoming participants not only from AmCham’s IT company members, but also those from the financial and services sectors. Noting the committee as one of the most active in AmCham, he introduced its new co-chairs, Abhishek Shah, CFO of IBM Indonesia, and Ruben Hattari, Director of Corporate Affairs for Microsoft Indonesia.

Abhishek and Ruben reviews the work of the committee for 2015. They noted that it was very active in working with the Indonesian government, especially the Ministry of Industry and the Ministry of Communication, to push efforts to find the best practices in IT policy in Indonesia, including local content regulations, onshore data centers and other pressing issues in the sector.

To move the dialogue further, the meeting invited two government representatives: Zakiyudin, the Industry Ministry’s new director for electronics and telematics, and Woro Indah, the Minister of Communication’s expert staff on technology.

Zakiyudin shared the latest developments on the local content calculation for software-oriented companies for 4G devices, which has been a headline issue for the IT sector over recent months. He introduced five combinations of percentages for companies to give input on and choose as the most suitable calculation for local content based on the nature of their businesses.

The software part of the calculation consists of two main indicators, which were take into account on how many active users an app has for a month and how many installed apps a 4G LTE device has. The ministry offered the options of 100 percent manufacture, 25 percent software, 50 percent software, 75 percent software and 100 percent software.

Zakiyudin also said that the ministry expected to have another meeting with businesses with the expectation that by then they will have already provided feedback for their proposed calculations.

The meeting was followed by a presentation by Woro Indah, which mainly focused on IT sector development in Indonesia, the e-commerce roadmap and broadband coverage. Woro also explained in a Q&A session that the ministry is considering evaluating Government Regulation No. 82/2012 on Onshore Data Centers and so is asking businesses to be active in submitting input to the ministry. She also mentioned that the e-commerce roadmap is still under development and the ministry welcomes any input to make it better.

The meeting closed with the committee discussing the key issues for 2016, and building strategies to be a constructive partner of the Indonesia government in the IT sector.

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